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Food

Pre-Peeled Avocados Are Really Pissing Off Canadian Shoppers

Sobeys is selling pre-peeled and halved avocados for the equivalent of US$4 a piece. Each avocado is denuded of its peel and encased in a plastic sheath, which is then inserted into a sturdy cardboard package.
Photo via Flickr user SFriedbergPhoto

Sobeys, the second-largest food retailer in Canada, must be pretty sure that people simply cannot learn how to open and eat an avocado. Back in 2010, the company posted a video to its Facebook page that demonstrated, in great detail, how to cut open the mysterious fruit. That must not have done the trick, though, because now Sobeys is selling pre-peeled and halved avocados for the equivalent of US$4 a piece. Each avocado is denuded of its peel and encased in a plastic sheath, which is then inserted into a sturdy cardboard package.

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How to Cut an Avocado The rich and creamy avocado can be simply sliced and diced with the help of these tips. To see more cooking videos like this go to http://www.inspired.ca. Posted bySobeys on Monday, November 22, 2010

All to save people that pesky slicing and the washing of one knife.

Given that Sobeys' motto is "We make sustainable attainable," selling peeled and packaged avocados might not be such a good idea. The retailer is now being dealt its share of shit on the Internet. It all seems to have started when a woman named Christine Kizik posted the obvious to her Facebook page: "Avocados have their own perfect, compostable wrapping. Adding packaging to an avocado is strange to say the least. This is wasteful and I'm curious about the reasoning." The post went viral and a shitstorm ensued.

Global News even created a video in which they demonstrated that prepping a "regular avocado" takes less time than unfurling a "packaged avocado" from its plastic and cardboard container.

Facebook user Richard Bugs Burnett summed up the furor when he posting the following: "I shall never again shop at Sobeys." Burnett said he was particularly upset by Sobeys' response to Christine Kizik's post, in which the supermarket chain said, "This product was developed for people who might be new to using avocados and for a little more convenience. It eliminates the guess work [sic] when it comes to ripeness and any challenges if you are not familiar with peeling and seeding a fresh avocado. The packaging is there to keep the fresh wholesome appearance and quality of the avocado without it browning prior to consumption."

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Seriously, Sobeys?

This being an Internet uproar, though, people took both sides. Some claimed to have limited hand mobility, only one hand, rheumatoid arthritis, or other conditions that make avocado peeling difficult. They then accused the sustainability folks of being insensitive.

Can you ever win a flame war on social media? Ask Whole Foods and they'll tell you, resoundingly, that the answer is no. When the American supermarket chain began selling peeled oranges in a plastic container for a neat $6, Twitter went nuts: "If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn't need to waste so much plastic on them," Nathalie Gordon tweeted—just one negative tweet of many. Whole Foods was quickly brought to its knees and tweeted last week, "Definitely our mistake. These have been pulled."

So get out your knives, people, because the internet is no longer letting you get away with your slothful habits. You'll have to buy your fruit in its natural state and actually cut it yourselves. And it will be sold in its very own peel, just as nature intended.